failure (English)

Where does "failure" come from?

The word failure trace back to the Proto-Indo-European root for stumbling or misstepping, which evolved into the Latin word fallere, meaning to deceive or disappoint. This concept moved through Vulgar Latin into Old French as faillir, gaining the meaning of falling short or failing. English eventually combined the verb fail with the noun-forming suffix -ure, creating a term that describes the result of missing an intended objective.

Full etymology tree

• failure (English), 'State or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, opposite of success.'
  • suffix fail (English), 'To be unsuccessful.'
    • inherited from failen (Middle English)
      • borrowed from falir (Old French), 'to fail'
        • inherited from *fallīre (Latin), 'fail'
          • derived from fallere (Latin), 'second-person singular future passive indicative of fallō'
            • inherited from *falsō (Proto-Italic)
              • inherited from *(s)gʷʰh₂el- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to stumble, misstep'
              • inherited from *bʰāl- (Proto-Indo-European)
  • suffix -ure (English), 'A process; a condition; a result of an action.'
    • inherited from -ure (Middle English), 'Forms abstract nouns denoting actions or results.'
      • borrowed from -ure (Old French), 'used to form usually feminine, usually abstract nouns'
        • inherited from -(ā)tūra (Latin)
          • compound of *-tew- (Proto-Indo-European)
          • compound of *-r-eh₂ (Proto-Indo-European)

Direct ancestors

• faillir (Old French)
• fail (English)
• -ure (English)

Updated March 2026

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris